EAVESDROPPING: listening in on a neighbor's conversation.

When I took a writing course at Brown University two years ago we learned the techniques of eavesdropping in normal, everyday experiences. It was a good exercise in listening carefully to the ACTUAL way conversations emerge...not necessarily the way writers frequently like to depict them. Actual conversations between people aren't on point much of the time. People skip around like waterbugs, stimulated by a word spoken in the last exchange. Sometimes the speakers fail to return to the original point. It has become too confusing.

I had such an experience this afternoon. I was having lunch in a nice little restaurant with Bill, my writing friend. I began to tell him about my blog and the blogs I have begun to read on a regular basis.

I described to him a phenomenal written conversation in which I became involved the other day when reading and responding to the author of "You Don't Say." John McIntyre, the author and former editor for the Baltimore Sun, wrote a piece about split infinitives and ending a sentence with a preposition. I had been taught throughout my public school education and multiple university settings that the practice was verboten.

The point of the blog was to clarify that there is no such rule. I, like others, had been fed incorrect information by my teachers and professors. But, to cut to the bottom line, I spent almost the entire day on the computer commenting, reading, and then commenting again on the blog. Dozens of people became involved in the day-long conversation. Most were linguists or copy editors. But there were a few of us linguistic novices who entered in. It was great fun. In the end I conceded that they were right, and I had been duped by my teachers and professors.

I was describing this experience to my friend, Bill, when we realized that the young woman next to us was eavesdropping on our conversation. Amidst some laughter on all of our parts, she pointed out that she was, of all things, a graduate of Yale and Stamford, with Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in linguistics. Our conversation with her took a new turn, and I ended up having her agree to pull up John's blog and mine. She isn't employed in her field of study, so I think she was thrilled to have been a part of such an interesting discussion...which must have sounded bizarre to anyone else listening in on our conversation.